Overview
- PennDOT and Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Monday that a second daily Pennsylvanian will begin operating in mid-November.
- Amtrak plans to open ticket sales for the new service in October ahead of the mid-November start date.
- The Shapiro administration has invested more than $80 million in track and signal work, and officials say construction to enable the extra train is largely complete.
- PennDOT, Amtrak and Norfolk Southern are coordinating operations because both trains will run on Norfolk Southern’s freight-heavy Pittsburgh Line, which carries double-stack intermodal traffic and can complicate passenger scheduling.
- The expansion is meant to give riders more travel options between Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and New York and to support jobs and local economic development; the Pennsylvanian carried about 236,000 passengers in fiscal 2025.